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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

I watch a lot of movies, which you probably guessed if
you’re reading this. For some reason I keep chronicling them as if it matters
how many movies I see in a given year, and for some reason I keep sharing them.
In that spirit, here is the list of films I saw in 2014, in chronological
order. Make of this what you will.

Monday, December 29, 2014

I’ll watch Salma Hayek in just about anything (I do,
however, draw the line at the Grown Ups movies), but if you
throw her into a Die Hard style actioner and hand her a big
ass gun, like in this trailer for Everly, I’m 100% in.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

If you’re a fan of the humor in movies like This is the End and Pineapple Express, you’ll enjoy the
Seth Rogen and James Franco-starring The Interview. If not,
you probably won’t find much to your liking. It’s a film full of that broad,
crass, bro-style humor that these guys are most known for, and it’s fun, with a
ballsy hook, but it’s nothing earth shattering, and is only going to be
remembered as the movie that pissed off a petulant little dictator and got Sony
hacked all to hell.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Of the various continuing Doctor Who
titles that Titan Comics has going right now, The Twelfth Doctor is something of an anomaly. The others, the Tenth, Eleventh,
and, soon, the Ninth Doctors, are all gone and the comics serve as a way for fans
to continue to go on adventures with their favorite Time Lords. But Peter
Capaldi’s Doctor is still going strong, and will be for some time now that we
know both Capaldi and Jenna Louise Coleman will be back for season 9 of the
long running sci-fi series. There’s no nostalgia to trade on here, and I won’t
say it’s unnecessary, but as we look at issue #3, “The Swords of Kali,” it has
a distinctly different feel than the others.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Every year I tell myself I’m not going to make an
end-of-year top ten list. I hate ranking films, but every year I cave and wind
up throwing together a collection that I’m wholly unsatisfied with, and 2014 is
proving to be no exception. Despite the fact that it was a terrible year in
terms of overall box office receipts, that doesn’t mean there weren’t tons of
great movies to be seen. I’m a firm believer that, no matter how fucked up the
movie industry gets, there will always be people out there making interesting,
worthwhile, badass cinema, you only have to look for it. Just check out all the
amazing work on television right now, and all the big name filmmakers who are
migrating that way in search of creative freedom. There will always be
compelling stories being told.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Only Angelina Jolie’s second directorial effort, Unbroken is
a very beautiful film to look at. Granted, she did herself a solid by retaining
the services of celebrated director of photography, Roger Deakins, one of the
premiere cinematographers working today. Unfortunately, the rest of the film
falls flat, with an uneven pace, odd structure (at least at first), and too
steadfast a dedication to telling every single step of Louis Zamperini’s (Jack
O’Connell) amazing survival story that it’s ultimately unable to set itself
apart from any standard, triumph-of-the-human-spirit type tale.

This is the best news we’ve heard all day. You knew that
this was too good to just be a short. A little while back we told you about a
crew trying to crowdsource enough cash to make a short film, Portal toHell, about a plumber, played by legendary wrestler and They
Live star “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, who battles H.P. Lovecrafts’ most
horrific creation, Cthulhu. As awesome as that sounds, it’s still only a short.
Or at least it was. The Canadian film just got a massive upgrade as Raven
Banner Entertainment stepped in and said, “No, guys, this is too brilliant a
concept not to be a feature,” and Portal to
Hell is going to be a full length motion picture.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

If you read the latest installment of Titan Comics’
Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, issue #6, and get seriously
annoyed with the narrative storytelling gimmick it employs, you are not the
only one. See, the story is told backwards, beginning with the end and moving
through time in reverse. It gets really, really irritating.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Though I’ve watched a fair amount of documentaries this
year, which I usually do, as I put together my best-of-the-year list, there’s a
noticeable absence of the genre. For various reasons, I’ve missed biggies like
Citizenfour, The Case Against 8, and
The Overnighters, and though I really enjoyed movies like
To Be Takei and The Internet’s Own Boy, I
haven’t been floored by what I’ve seen yet. But for all the documentaries out
there, I don’t know that there’s one I want to see more than Tales of
the Grim Sleeper, and this this new trailer only solidifies that fact.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Of the three Doctor Who titles Titan
Comics currently has going, The Tenth Doctor continues to
show that it is far and away the best of the bunch. Issue #5, the conclusion of
the two-part “Arts in Space” arc, further illustrates that this incarnation of
the Time Lord, along with his travelling companion Gabby Gonzales, are easily
the most relatable, connected duo running around the comic book pages, while
also showing that writer Nick Abadzis isn’t afraid to take his time in letting
a story or thread unfold and evolve.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

In the service of transparency, I’m not a fan of the first two films in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy. We could go
into greater depth, but that would take a good long while, and I’ve already
detailed my issues elsewhere. I find them tedious and dull and almost
completely lacking in all of the things that make me love J.R.R. Tolkien’s
novel. That said, the latest and final chapter in the franchise, The
Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, is not only the best of the
series by a mile, it’s damn entertaining, and a mostly satisfying end to a
troubled, overlong journey.

Are you in the mood to sit on your couch and watch a
supernatural detective story starring Scott Bakula? If the answer to that
question is yes, you’re in luck, as Clive Barker’s Lord of
Illusions just got a special edition Blu-ray release, including an
extended director’s cut, courtesy of the fine folks at Scream Factory. If
you’re familiar with their work, you know that means you get an awesome movie
and a fantastic package of extra goodies.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Hot on the heels of the announcement that Terrence Malick’s
next film, Knight of Cups, will premiere at the Berlin Film
Festival next year, the movie dropped our first look in the form of this new
trailer. From what we have here, this is both the Malick we’ve come to expect
over his last few films, but also something totally fresh and different.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

With Exodus: Gods and Kings, Ridley Scott
set out to create a throwback to the biblical swords-and-sandals epics of
yesteryear. He even goes so far as to shoot day-for-night and to use white guys
awkwardly painted to look like people from the Middle East. What he succeeds in
delivering is a jumbled mess that starts fast and bogs down almost immediately
for the entirely of its 149-minute run time. We’re talking about a shockingly
dull mess, especially for a movie that bills itself as a massive action extravaganza.
It’s a movie with grand ambition, minimal follow through, and little interest
in the human component.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

This is the latest trailer for Mad Max: FuryRoad. Watch it. Watch it loud. Watch it repeatedly. It is absolutely
insane, and just when I think I can’t be any more excited for George Miller’s
return to the post-apocalyptic wastes, I look at this again and get stoked
beyond belief. This is everything I’ve ever wanted out of any movie ever. Hell,
this two-and-a-half-minute trailer just became my favorite movie of 2014.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,
reportedly the first ever Iranian vampire western, watches like indie horror
raised on a steady diet of Tarantino and Sergio Leone movies. A spare, fresh
take on the blood sucker story, it’ll make a interesting double feature with
Jim Jarmusch’s 2014 entry into the genre, Only Lovers LeftAlive. In fact, Girl comes across as a younger,
twee companion to Lovers. The two are similar in mood, tone,
and movement, but while the former is like a night at a dance club, the latter
is more akin to a sparsely populated watering hole where you know the bartender
by name.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Political allegory about race, class, and a host of other
issues, I’m intrigued. Political allegory about race, class, and host of other
issues, as enacted by dogs, what more can I ask for out of a movie? As a dog person
(don’t get me wrong, I adore cats, but I’m first and foremost a dog lover),
it’s like they made this White God trailer just for me.

You know who I will follow blindly in the event of any major
disaster? That’s right, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. And that includes in the
aftermath of a massive earthquake, just like in the first trailer for his
upcoming San Andreas. This looks so, so dumb, but also super awesome.

Who would have thought I’d be excited about a remake of
Kickboxer? But with a cast led by stunt badass Alan Moussi,
featuring former UFC champ George St. Pierre, WWE star Dave Bautista, and
original star Jean-Claude Van Damme as the wise mentor figure, you have my
attention. Still, I’d rather you call it anything else and just let it be a
Kickboxer remake, but now that Gina Carano has joined theparty, you can call it whatever the hell you want and I’m all in.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

2014 has been an awesome year for independent horror, and
even though one of the most celebrated titles (Jennifer Kent’s The
Babadook) left me totally flat, there is a lot to celebrate, and a
lot to look forward to. One of the films I’m most anticipating is David Robert
Mitchell’s It Follows, especially after watching this
chilling new trailer.

Friday, December 5, 2014

Most of you probably haven’t seen Bill Gunn’s 1973 blaxploitation
vampire flick Ganga & Hess, and that’s a damn shame.
It’s a cool, unique meditation on race, class, identity, religion, and
addiction, as well as being a strange, creepy horror joint. But don’t worry if
you’re unfamiliar, because Spike Lee has seen it, and as if to prove that any
film, no matter how obscure, can be remade, his Da Sweet Blood of
Jesus does just that. It hits theaters and VOD early next year, and
now you can check out this new trailer, which now has me solidly on board.

Right now we’re in that awkward place where we try to kill
time between the end of Doctor Who season 8 and the annual
Christmas special (how can you not be excited at the prospect of Nick Frost
playing Santa Claus? That’s going to rule so hard). Lucky for you, we have the
continuing adventures of the Doctor on the pages of the funny books to keep us
occupied. This time, the Eleventh Doctor is back for the fifth issue of his
title, and this bubbly installment bears the moniker “The Sound of my Voice.”

Thursday, December 4, 2014

The new, ridiculously named Terminator:
Genisys has been a mixed bag. Some pieces sound rad, others make you
roll your eyes. And this first trailer is that in a nutshell. There are
elements that look totally great, and some that make you wish this didn’t
happen. I’ll shut up for now and let you watch it for yourself. We can talk
more about it down below.

Kickboxer is one of the greatest films
ever made. If you disagree with that statement, we have very different worldviews.
When I heard it was getting remade, with former WWE wrestler-turned-movie-star
Dave Bautista as their big name, I had to groan; of course they’re going to
fuck up one of my favorite movies. But then they started adding pieces I actually
like. For instance, Tony Jaa, Scott Adkins, noted stunt badass Alain Moussi,
and former UFC welterweight great Georges St. Pierre, were all on board. Okay, that’s
interesting, and while two of those pieces are no longer a part of this
particular puzzle, they’ve added a new one in the form of a little guy named
Jean-Claude Van Damme. Now you have my attention. I still think this is a
terrible idea, but I’m moderately intrigued now.